Top Navy Pictures - Ships
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German Battlecruiser Scharnhorst1166 viewsScharnhorst was a 31,100-ton Gneisenau-class battleship of the German Kriegsmarine, named to commemorate the World War I armoured cruiser SMS Scharnhorst, which was in turn named after the Prussian general Gerhard von Scharnhorst
The ship was built at Wilhelmshaven, Germany, launched in October 1936 under the Hitler regime's massive rearmament program, and commissioned in January 1939.
(6 votes)
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SMS Blucher 1909803 viewsSMS Blücher was the last armoured cruiser of the German Kaiserliche Marine and was considered an intermediate stage toward the future German battlecruiser.
This ship was constructed in the Kiel dockyard, between 1907 and 1909, being completed in October of that year.
During World War I, on January 24, 1915, the obsolete SMS Blücher was sunk during the Battle of Dogger Bank (1915) by more modern British battlecruisers.
The World War II German heavy cruiser Blucher was named after her.
(6 votes)
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1912 HMS Iron Duke849 viewsHMS Iron Duke was a battleship of the Royal Navy, the lead ship of her class, named in honour of Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington. She served as the flagship of the Grand Fleet during World War I. She was the flagship of the Grand Fleet at the battle of Jutland. For the majority of the Great War she was based with the rest of the Grand Fleet at Scapa Flow.
Iron Duke was launched on 12 October 1912 at Portsmouth, England, the first of her class. After commissioning, she joined the Home Fleet as the flagship of Admiral Sir George Callaghan. Shortly before the beginning of hostilities, Callaghan was relieved by Admiral Sir John Jellicoe, who made Iron Duke the flagship of the newly organized Grand Fleet. Her only major combat service during World War I came in the battle of Jutland, 31 May 1916, where she served in the 2nd Battle Squadron. She later became the flagship of Admiral Sir David Beatty when he assumed command of the Grand Fleet in late 1916.
After the war, she was transferred to the Mediterranean Fleet, where she again served as flagship, this time for Admiral Sir John de Robeck. She served with the Mediterranean and Atlantic Fleets until she was paid off in 1929. In the remainder of the inter-war years she served as a training vessel. During World War II she was used as a base ship at Scapa Flow, where she was forced to beach during an air attack in 1939. She was refloated and saw continued service until the conclusion of hostilities. She was sold in 1946 as scrap, and broken up in Glasgow in 1948.
(5 votes)
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Admiral Graf Spee in 19361019 viewsThe most famous of the three 'Deutschland' class 'pocket battleships', the Admiral Graf Spee was launched in June 1934 and completed in January 1936, and was scuttled off Montevideo in December 1939 after suffering only modest damage in the Battle of the River Plate, against a force of three British cruisers, at the end of a commerce-raiding cruise in which the German ship had sunk or captured nine British merchant ships.
(11 votes)
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1906 HMS Dreadnought875 viewsThis was the sixth HMS Dreadnought of the British Royal Navy and was the first battleship to have a uniform main battery, rather than having secondary smaller guns. She was also the first large warship to be powered by steam turbines, making her the fastest warship of her size. So advanced was Dreadnought that her name became a generic term for modern battleships; whilst the ships she made obsolete were known as "pre-dreadnoughts".
(7 votes)
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Deutschland or Lützow1278 viewsDeutschland, later re-named Lützow, was the first German large armoured ship built after World War I.
Its keel was laid down in February 1929, at the Deutsche Werke shipyard in Kiel, and launched in May 1931. It completed fitting out in late 1932 and took its maiden voyage in May 1932.
Its size and characteristics where severely limited by the Treaty of Versailles, which limited Germany to ships of no more than 10,000 tons displacement. A number of technical innovations (including large scale use of welding to make the hull lighter) used by the Germans to build a formidable warship within this restricted weight. Even so, the Deutschland was 600 tons overweight, although for political reasons its announced displacement was always given as the 10,000 tons of the treaty limit.
Two other very similar (but not identical) ships were built in its class, the Admiral Graf Spee and the Admiral Scheer. The class was termed Panzerschiff ("armoured ship"); they were designated "pocket battleships" by the British because of their characteristics: their guns (6 x 28 cm in two turrets) were substantially bigger than those of the heavy cruisers of her time, but they were much smaller (and much less armoured), but faster than the standard battleships.
After the start of World War II, she was renamed Lützow in November 1939 because Adolf Hitler feared that the loss a ship with the name "Germany" would have a significant negative psychological and propaganda effect.
In February 1940 she and her sisterships were re-classified as heavy cruisers, and in April of that year she participated in the invasion of Norway. Lützow was then to return to Germany to refit for an extended raiding cruise into the Atlantic, but was torpedoed by the British submarine Spearfish in the Skagerrak north of Jutland. The hit nearly tore off the entire stern of the ship and repairs were not finished until late 1941.
She participated in various minor events during the next years, but her only other significant service came starting in September 1944 in the Baltic Sea when she fired on land targets in support of the retreating German army, a service she would continue to provide in the subsequent months.
The ship was badly damaged by three 6-ton Tallboy bombs dropped by the Royal Air Force in April 1945 as it lay off Swinemünde, and it came to rest on the bottom. It was repaired, and then did further support of the army; it was finally scuttled by its crew on 4 May 1945.
After the war, the Sovie
(8 votes)
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Viribus Unitis in 1912757 viewsSMS Viribus Unitis was an Austro-Hungarian dreadnought battleship of the Viribus Unitis class.
Viribus Unitis was built at Stabilmento Tecnico Tristino yard, Trieste.
After Austria-Hungary was defeated in World War I, and it became apparent that the coastal areas will be controlled by the newly-formed State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs, the Austrian government decided to give the ship, along with much of the fleet, to the Croatians.
Viribus Unitis and the rest of the former Austrian fleet was soon targetted by the Italians. She was sunk at anchor at Pola on 1 November 1918 by a mignatta carried by an Italian human torpedo.
(9 votes)
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SMS Westfalen 1908800 viewsSMS Westfalen, launched 1908 at AG Weser in Bremen was one of the first dreadnought battleships (ship of the line) built for the Imperial German Navy. There were three other ships in her class: SMS Nassau (launched in 1908 at the Imperial shipyards in Wilhelmshaven), SMS Posen (launched in 1908 at Germania shipyards in Kiel) and SMS Rheinland (launched 1908 at Vulcan in Stettin). The ships were armed with twelve 28 cm guns in double turrets -- one forward, one aft, and two on each side. In addition, they carried twelve 15 cm guns, sixteen 8.8 cm guns and six torpedo tubes. SMS Nassau was 146 m long, displaced 18,873 tons, carried a crew of 1008, and had a top speed of 20 knots. All four ships took part in the Battle of Jutland on 31 May–1 June 1916.
Following the end of World War I, the ships were surrendered to the victorious powers as war booty. Westfalen was surrendered in 1920 to Great Britain and scrapped in 1924. The other three ships were surrendered to Japan, which sold them to a British wrecking firm which then scrapped them in Dordrecht (Netherlands).
(8 votes)
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Gneisenau in 1939910 viewsThe Gneisenau was the second of the two 'Scharnhorst' class battle-cruisers completed in Germany in the late 1930s as highly impressive ships with a full-load displacement of 34,900 tons, length of 754ft Oin (229.8m), armament of nine I I inch (280mm) guns in three triple turrets, twelve 5.6inch (150mm) guns in six twin turrets, fourteen 4.1 inch (105mm) anti-aircraft guns in seven twin mountings and sixteen 37mm anti-aircraft guns in eight twin mountings.
(8 votes)
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Japanese battleship Nagato 19191166 viewsNagato was the Imperial Japanese Navy's first Nagato class battleship, laid down at the Kure Naval Arsenal on August 28, 1917, launched on November 9, 1919, and completed on November 15, 1920. After the war, Nagato was used as a target ship by the United States in the Operation Crossroads nuclear tests at Bikini Atoll, and sank during the second (BAKER) test. Despised by the sailors at Bikini for its role as flagship of the Pearl Harbor attack force, mines had been strapped to her sides to facilitate her sinking. Both blasts damaged, but did not immediately sink the battleship, although BAKER caused the slow but continuous flooding that produced a list.
(4 votes)
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HMS Hood 1918955 viewsLaunched in August 1918, after being christened by the widow of Admiral Sir Horace Hood (a Jutland casualty and distant relative of the famous Lord Hood for whom the ship was named), and seen here about 1932, HMS Hood is reputed to be one of the most beautifully designed capital ship of its time. A battlecruiser of the Royal Navy. She was one of four Admiral-class ships ordered in mid-1916 under the Emergency War Programme, but her sisters were never completed, and Hood was to be Britain's last battlecruiser. Construction of Hood began at Clydebank, Scotland, in September 1916. Following the loss of three British battlecruisers at the Battle of Jutland, 5,000 tons of extra armour and bracing was added to Hood's design. Construction on her sister ships (Anson, Howe, and Rodney) was stopped in March 1917, but work continued on Hood.
During the Battle of Denmark Strait on 24 May 1941, she was hit by a shell fired by the Bismarck which caused the catastrophic explosion of her aft magazines. Of the 1,418 aboard, only three survived. The dramatic loss of such a well-known symbol of British naval power had a great effect on many people; some later remembered the news as the most shocking of World War II.
The wreck of Hood was discovered in 3,000 metres of water in July 2001. In 2002 the UK government designated the site a war grave.
(6 votes)
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Japanese Battleship HIJMS Kirishima848 viewsKirishima was the Imperial Japanese Navy's fourth Kongo class battlecruiser, and was laid down by Mitsubishi in Nagasaki on March 17, 1912, launched on December 1, 1913 and commissioned on April 19, 1915. From 1933 to 1934, she was reconstructed at Kure, Japan, emerging from her reconstruction as a "fast battleship," 4,000 tons heavier than her original incarnation.
On November 15, 1942, Kirishima engaged American vessels in the Battle of Guadalcanal, and while inflicting some damage on USS South Dako
(8 votes)
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